Read My Book!~ The American Book of the Dead by Henry Baum

My book isn’t perfect, I know this.  The novel follows a writer, Eugene Myers, working on a book about the end of the world, and the U.S. president in the year 2020, Charles Winchell, who’s about to unleash World War III.  As Eugene Myers continues work on his book, he comes to realize that what he’s writing is actually based on what’s happening.  When he starts dreaming about people who turn out to be real, the worlds of fiction and dreams collide, so he – and the reader – is not sure of what’s fiction and what’s reality anymore. 

So it’s a lot to get your head around, as intended.  But it’s also written as a kind of “future history” – in parts it’s a somewhat encyclopedic retelling of events, to enhance the sense that this is “real.”  But some people have complained about that – and frankly, I don’t blame them, because it means that the book can seem uneven in some places.  I actually thought people were going to be critical of something else – Eugene Myers, who’s basically me in the year 2020, comes to be a kind of messianic figure during and after the war.  I thought some would think this was something I’d envisioned for myself.  Actually, it plays into the whole theme of: is this reality or one writer’s deranged fantasy?  But that criticism hasn’t come…yet. 

Mostly, the book’s been well-received and it’s won a couple of awards: Best Fiction at the DIY Book Festival and the Gold IPPY Award for Visionary Fiction.